Countdown to Ecstasy is the second studio album by the American rock band Steely Dan, released in July 1973 by ABC Records. It was recorded at Caribou Ranch in Nederland, Colorado and at The Village Recorder in West Los Angeles, California. After the departure of vocalist David Palmer, the group recorded the album with Donald Fagen singing lead on all the songs.Read More

Overlooking Bear Family’s comprehensive nine-disc box, this double-CD set is the best reissue ever on Louis Jordan, and the first truly comprehensive domestic release on Jordan’s work to feature state-of-the-art sound. There are holes — only a relative handful of the tracks that Jordan & His Tympany Five recorded in 1939 and 1940 are included, although those that are here represent most of the best of them — but not huge ones, and every major Jordan track from 15 years of work is present.Read More

Mel Tormé had recorded relatively few rewarding albums in the decade before this set, originally put out by Gryphon before being reissued on CD by DCC Jazz. However, his voice had improved with time, his range had widened, and he had become an even stronger jazz singer than before.Read More

As the 1950s came to a close, Nat King Cole (vocals/piano) continued creating stylish renditions of pop and jazz flavored standards. On Welcome to the Club (1959) the artist teams up with Dave Cavanaugh and the Count Basie combo — minus the maestro himself due to contractual restraints — for one of Cole’s most powerful collections supported by a big band. In fact, it is Cole’s unmistakable ultra-cool intonations that flawlessly reign in the fiery — and at times overbearing — ensemble arrangements.Read More

First issued in the early ’60s, this collection of musical Christmas cheer is packed full of the smoothly sung, sentimental favorites associated as much with Nat King Cole himself as with the season. The singer’s performance of “The Christmas Song” is an unforgettable classic reprised here twice, once in an updated version that includes a contemporary vocal from his daughter, Natalie, and also in Cole’s original 1946 recording.Read More

Tony Bennett’s latter-day albums tend to have themes, and this one has two, as indicated by its double-barreled title: It is both a duets album and a blues album. The duet partners include ten singers who range from his recent touring partners Diana Krall and k.d. lang to fellow veterans Ray Charles, B.B. King, and Kay Starr, and younger, but still mature pop stars Stevie Wonder, Bonnie Raitt, and Billy Joel.Read More

The Look of Love is the sixth studio album by Canadian singer Diana Krall, released on September 18, 2001 by Verve Records. It became Krall’s first album to top the Canadian Albums Chart. In 2002, the album earned Al Schmitt the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.Read More

Coleman Hawkins’ 1957 session for Riverside, aside from an oral documentary record in a short-lived series, was his only recording for the label under his name. Yet producer Orrin Keepnews had the good sense to invite the legendary tenor saxophonist to pick his own musicians, and Hawkins surprised him by asking for young boppers J.J. Johnson and Idrees Sulieman in addition to the potent rhythm section of Hank Jones, Oscar Pettiford, Barry Galbraith, and Jo Jones.Read More

While the jazz fascists (read: purists) may be screaming “sellout” because Diana Krall decided to record something other than standards this time out, the rest of us can enjoy the considerable fruit of her labors. The Girl in the Other Room is, without question, a jazz record in the same manner her other outings are.Read More